An overly ambitious dingo. 2012.

I did a post some time ago about a new inquest being opened in to the Azaria Chamberlain case, and followed that up with another noting the conclusion of the inquest.

For those of you who may not know, Azaria Chamberlain was a nine-week-old baby who disappeared from a tent at Ayres Rock campground in 1980. Her parents were accused of her murder, her mother serving time in prison before being released due to the discovery of new evidence.

The inquest found that Azaria was taken by a dingo and the coroner gave a tearful apology to the family. Some people still believe that the family were responsible but the majority agree with the official findings.

The original post I did about this included an article from 1937 about a small child followed by a dingo and I made comment about the times we have been harassed by animals, including a dingo, on our camping trips.

I have added this post today because a news report yesterday caught my eye. Apparently a 13-year-old girl and her family were camping near Kakadu National Park, in the Northern Territory, when she was awoken by her sleeping bag being pulled by a dingo. On the nightly news her torn sleeping bag was shown by her stressed looking family.

I don’t doubt that a dingo in a popular campground would be game enough to get that close to people, although I think that it might have been a little overly ambitious thinking that it wouldn’t have trouble getting a dozy teenager out of bed when they were on holidays!